c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Journalist Matthew Green trekked through East Africa in search of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) _ a rebel army known for terrorizing Uganda for the last 20 years.

Green’s new book, “The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted,” examines the man who wants to rule Uganda based on the Ten Commandments, even though he doesn’t mind breaking them in order to get his way.

Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for multiple war crimes, including the enslavement of child soldiers, murder, mutilation and rape.

Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You say your book was motivated by the question: “How could one maniac leading an army of abducted children hold half a country hostage for 20 years?” To what extent did religion play a part in Kony’s power?

A: Kony was a very skillful manipulator of his followers, and religion played a big part in that. The Acholi people of northern Uganda are in many ways quite a devout people. People generally consider themselves to be Christians. In a sense he invented his own religion, he took elements from the Catholic faith and from traditional Acholi beliefs and blended them into a unique faith that gave a very powerful spiritual dimension to his movement.

He was famous at one stage for smearing his followers with crosses made of white clay, part of a ritual that would help make them immune to bullets. He would speak with the voices of various spirits that would possess him. He imbued a sense of meaning and purpose in his followers that is often underestimated by people who see it as a ragtag, primitive movement.

Q: Kony went from spiritual healer to internationally wanted war criminal. How did that happen?

A: As a healer, he was trying to treat individual cases of sickness. One school of thought says there is a certain rationale that as a healer one is healing the sick, but if the whole of society is in turmoil … the whole of society needs to be healed. Taking that logic one step further, that means getting rid of the people that one would regard as being polluting influences.

Q: Kony wants to rule Uganda based on the Ten Commandments. How does he interpret them exactly?

A: Obviously everyone points out that “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. The LRA are quite efficient at killing people. The justification of killing was very much in a sense the Old Testament. Kony would look at the Bible and the “eye for an eye” logic justified killing.

Q: How do other religious traditions in Uganda respond to the Lord’s Resistance Army?

A: The Catholic Church in the north of Uganda has been very much at the forefront of peace efforts. Catholic leaders have been very slow to condemn Kony as a person. They’ve certainly condemned his atrocities, but Kony is almost like a prodigal son … . And they would argue that they have a duty to try to bring him back into the fold.

Q: Is it typical in Uganda to blend Christianity with traditional religion?

A: Kony wasn’t unique. There’s a whole history in East Africa of prophets who emerge at times of political and social turmoil in their communities who call on spiritual traditions to deliver or restore a sense of hope.

Q: Why haven’t Kony’s war crimes received the same kind of attention of the genocide that’s occurring in neighboring Sudan?

A: In Sudan, there’s a whole series of issues that converge in one conflict. The war in southern Sudan was often portrayed in the States as a war between Muslims and Christians, even though it’s far more complicated than that. And the fact that Sudan’s been called genocide has galvanized a lot of people in a way that’s never happened in northern Uganda.

Q: If this conflict ever gets resolved, do you see religion playing a role in healing Ugandans?

A: There’s a whole industry that’s grown up around the idea that the LRA can be reintegrated and their leaders forgiven using the traditional reconciliation rituals of the Acholi community. There’s a lot of people who think that’s rather naive, and that there’s no unique Acholi propensity to forgive people for committing terrible crimes. Prodigal son is one way to put it, but there’s an ambiguity in attitudes towards Kony, that’s for sure.

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